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A couple of months ago, I saw an adorable Halloween craft on Pinterest.

The day I discovered it happened to be a never-leave the house, Hubby out of town, crazy cranky toddler day. So, I decided we need to get out of the house, and this craft was the perfect thing to occupy our time. Colton enjoyed the trip since I let him pick out the green background color for the frame, and even got him a little paintbrush so he and Blue Bear could “help.”

This ended up being the perfect busy mom project. I could mindlessly glue googly eyes to the frame while I watched TV, or glue a few on while I waited for water to boil, or even while I monitored Colton’s snack eating. It took about a million eyes to cover the frame, but I think if I had used more large eyes, it wouldn’t have taken so many.

I thought I would take pictures of the finished product with Colton; I had a vision of him wearing his Halloween shirt while displaying the frame nicely.

He enjoyed shaking and watching the eyes move far to much to hold it still. Oh well, at least he had fun! I’m planning on putting a picture of Colton from last Halloween in it, but I might leave it out a little longer with a photo from this year.Happy Halloween!

I’m a little bit insanely in love with the turkey shirt I made for Colton.

Do you think Hubby will go for matching family turkey shirts? Can I put this on a Thanksgiving pillow?

I followed this tutorial from The Cottage Home, which includes a free pattern, and found it helpful and easy. I haven’t don the embroidery, but I think I might skip it since I love the shirt so much already (Any thoughts on this? Does it need eyes, beak and feet?). I used an 18 month sized Carter’s onesie for my shirt, and I think if you make this turkey on a smaller shirt you might want to reduce the template size – it takes up most of the front area.

I’m a terrible blogger. There was some exciting stuff happening on our little street earlier this week, and I didn’t blog about it.

Wanna guess what it was?

You’ll never guess.

So, I’ll just tell you.

Our next door neighbor was on Martha Stewart. (Did you guess?)

We don’t get the Hallmark channel, so I don’t watch Martha’s show, but if you do, you may have noticed she has a contest called ReMARTHAble, where contests send in things they do/make that make them “the Martha Stewart of their family.”

Well, my neighbor entered, and not only was she featured in a show with a picture of herself and the animals she felts, but she found out that she’s a finalist in the contest.

So Sunday morning Martha’s peeps whisked her away to New York, and Monday she demonstrated her craft like a pro. You can check out the instructions on how to make these adorable rattle animals and watch her demo on Martha’s Website.

Check out the comments – someone wants to know if she has a book! My neighbor is famous! And she made Colton one of her adorable creations!

Aren't they both cute?

The only downside to all of this? She’ll probably become so famous she’ll have to move. Bummer ’cause she’s a great neighbor.

One day, I’m going to learn that I should leave all DIY-ing to the Hubs. Or, I’m going to become really awesome at DIY-ing. The jury’s still out. (Actually, this really didn’t turn out that badly, but I don’t have the most stellar track record.)

I saw a recipe for making your own finger paint, and decided to try it out. It seemed simple enough, and this, plus water, were all I needed:

If you want to make your own finger paint, and decide to use this recipe, here are the modifications I would suggest:

Whisk, do not stir, your mixture. It took 15+ minutes for me to get mine to an appropriate consistency, but I didn’t trying whisking until 10 minutes had gone by.

Cook the cornstarch, sugar and water until it is thicker than you want your finger paint to end up, because the soap will thin it out a good bit.

Plan to use this before you want to give your kid a bath – I found that the food coloring stained my finger, but came off after my shower.

Maybe try halving the recipe if you don’t have a couple of kids who love to finger paint – this made quite a lot of finger paint, even if you made multiple colors, I can’t imagine you would use all of them in a reasonable time.

And now, for the best part, pictures!

A little uncertain; what is this stuff mom spread on my paper?

I like it, but I think my ears need a little paint.

If I smear it, it is fun!

Little Picaso.

Our masterpieces; mine is in the middle.

Oh! One other note, it does take a little while for the paint to dry, and it bleeds through regular computer paper, hence the drying in the window and the folded paper for Colton’s second painting.

Now that Christmas is over, do you have a bunch of Christmas cards you want to keep but don’t know what to do with? Don’t toss ’em — re-purpose them into next year’s Christmas decorations! Last year we didn’t have a lot of Christmas ornaments and we didn’t want to spent a lot of money to deck our tree, so I made some using wedding cards. First, I found cards that only had writing on one side.

I detached the front side, the one with no writing and the image on it, and checked out what parts of the card design I liked best. With this card, that was pretty easy because the pattern was consistent all-over. With other cards, pick whatever part you like best! If you’re using a photo card, you’ll probably want to include the faces of your loved ones!

Now’s the time to get out your trusty holiday cookie cutters! Lay them over the part of the pattern you like best, then trace around the outside of the cookie cutter. One card I used last year had a pink sequin on it, and I used that with a reindeer cookie cutter to create Rudolph! Be creative in using your cookie cutters and the pattern of your card!

Once you’ve cut out your shapes (be sure to cut inside the lines you traced) you can use a hot glue gun or craft clue to attach ribbon to hang your creations as ornaments, prop them up in garland, or anything else you can think of! Your holiday guests will be especially pleased to see that you liked their card enough to use it as part of your holiday decor, and you’ll be reminded of them every time you check out your tree.

Hand-made ornaments definitely work for me! For more tips and tricks, check out Rocks in my Dryer!

Just a 20-something girl living on the East Coast, trying to figure out life.
I'm a wife and mom to two.
I'm trying to rediscover my love for long walks, yoga and pilates. But not hiking. I still don't like hills.
I was raised at the beach, but I don't like the beach. I like to look at it, but I don't like to swim in it, I'd prefer a pool, thanks.
I'm just trying to become the best person I can be -- the woman God wants me to be. That's easier said than done!

E-mail Me!

Contact me at longbrakeliving@gmail.com - I'd love to hear from you!

Hubby is my all-time favorite guy. A perfect mix of serious, sarcastic, laid-back, handy and nerdy, he is the perfect complement to me. I love his strong work-ethic and the way he always loves and supports me through everything. Some of Hubby's favorite things include: hiking, Virginia Tech football, woodworking, and his family. When I married him in July 2007, I had no idea what an amazing journey we were headed on, and how I could come to love him so much more each day.

Our oldest, Colton, is three years old. He is equal parts sassy and hysterical. He loves all things train, car, bus, truck, and machine related. He has a penchant for made-up words and loves to be the clown of his pre-school class.
Our younger son, Nathan, was born this May. He is pure joy and full of smiles! He is such a blessing and a perfect fit for our family.